Patent Landscaping and Risk Analysis

To develop a dominant position in a market, a company needs to know not only what its customers want, but also the patent positions of its competitors. A lack of understanding of the scope of patents that impact a client’s products and market can lead to delayed product introductions, increased development costs – and potentially costly infringement litigation.

Cantor Colburn’s Patent Landscaping and Risk Analysis practice combines extensive technical experience with legal knowledge to identify relevant competitive patents and organize them into a tool usable by engineering, marketing, and business management to develop a strategic product development plan.

We provide a range of landscaping and risk analysis services designed to help clients maximize their product development budgets. We work with product development teams to perform patent searches and identify design concepts to proactively avoid competitive patents. Further, by identifying “holes” in the patent landscape, product development efforts may be focused in areas where broad patent protection may be acquired.

To further decrease product development time and reduce risk, we also assist clients in analyzing the patent landscape to determine innovators in the field. These market innovators may then be targeted as potential partners, licensors, or acquisition candidates.

While every attempt is made to find solutions that avoid competitive patents, sometimes for business or technical reasons clients find it necessary to operate in a crowded patent field. We have extensive experience in advising clients on designing around problematic patents and in preparing freedom-to-operate, non-infringement, and invalidity opinions that provide business teams the assurance they need to feel comfortable in introducing a product.